Altium Develop Reviews

Summary: I'v been using Altium since 13 years and I still love it! All the additional features like EMI-EMC simulation, and other new features make it a must to design PCBs

Positive: UI is very easy to learn. Like the cloud service and manufacturer part search. Easy to create new components and generates BOM

Negative: Some crash here and there but better than it as been before

Summary: I am currently an electrical engineering student in college, and I've used quite a few ECAD programs, but Altium Designer is hands-down the best. It has amazing utility, a great community, tons of resources, and very intuitive design (apart from the UI).

Positive: Altium Designer has basically everything you could possibly need in an ECAD, while still managing to be easy to use. It has amazing simulation software, easy to use footprint and schematic models wizards, and integration with major MCAD programs to allow you to design cases/ mechanical components around your PCB. The documentation is amazing, and they have tons of free resources on how to design better circuit boards.

Negative: I can't speak to this too much yet because I have free access to Altium Designer as a college student, but Altium Designer costs a lot. The price matches its utility, but for smaller companies it may cost more than they can afford. In addition, the file UI and a few other UI elements could be improved. For example, I was working on updating on old PCB design and Altium added all of my generated documents to separate folders, which I was unable to combine for some reason. It took me a while to figure out the problem, mainly because there were multiple UI options that were named similarly.

Summary: I have used Fusion360, Eagle, and KiCad to design PCBs, but Altium reigns supreme. There is not a better PCB designing software that is as well maintained, documented, and supported. The engineers are constantly improving the designers workflow and the ease of access is incredible.

Positive: - The software itself is modern and sleek, each action is very fast as well. If processing time is required, there is always an active indicator.
- Every feature one could need for PCB designing is available, with countless articles and videos tutorials for them. There have been many instances where I looked up how to do something, discovered a better way to do it, and had many resources to help me accomplish it.
- There are very detailed error messages whenever some issue arises. If the software itself doesn't tell you a solution, there is an official article showing how to resolve it.
- Hundreds of lessons available to help guide a new PCB designer learn best practices, and seasoned designers ease into a new tool.

Negative: - Making a change to a library element is tedious. I may have not found a better way to do it, but the only way I have found is long.

Summary: I think Altium is one of the best PCB design softwares on the market and it’s my go to choice for both professional work and personal projects.

Positive: The built in advance features for PCB design like 3D view and parametric design puts Altium a step above Kicad.

Negative: There is a sharp learning curve. After learning the basic features some of the more advance stuff takes a while to learn.

Summary: Altium has been a very useful tool for importing external designs via DXF/DWG and making customizations as needed. Robust features allow for ease of use when starting from schematic to layout in order to make the designers time much more efficient

Positive: Online documentation is plentiful and covers many of the basic needs to navigate the many tools at your disposal. The training courses are very thorough and well laid out to cover basic flows all the way to complex circuit design.

Negative: So many features that it can almost be hard to scratch the surface on a lot of them

Summary: The entire process from creating a symbol to generating Gerber works seamlessly. I also had a look at the Simulation tool, which is quite impressive as well.

Positive: I have worked on multiple CAD tools throughout my career. Compared to some of the other CAD tools I have been using, Altium provides an excellent user interface. The 3D view is another commendable aspect of this tool. You can turn on the single mode option and analyze each layer in detail.

Negative: I have been using this tool for more than 12 months and haven't found any major concerns yet. My only suggestion would be to add more simulation models (SPICE/IBIS) for parts from leading manufacturers in to the database.

Summary: I spend golden days in Altium training. It given me intense pleasure when working with it. Moreover, I got a some industrial experience. I learn to mail to officials in a decent language.

Positive: I fall in love with Altium 365 while playing with
projects. The professor, who came came for us is quite friendly. He not hesitated while clarifying and repeating the previous classes topics.

Negative: For us classes timings are little bad. Moreover, my licence is deactivated. I want my licence to be renewed to practice once again.

Summary: Overall this software is vey good, a little bit expensive. It was much better if we could access to cheaper version with less feature.
Support is good.

Positive: Not very hard to work with without knowledge.
The libraries are available.
A lot of YouTube videos to help.

Negative: There are many complicated menus and features.
There is no help or explanations in the menus to help to understand.

Summary: Overall, it's a solid offering and my favorite product in the industry. Please keep it efficient and up to date. Also ensure better integration with tools and automation like Python.

Positive: I like Altium the most by far. Allegro is not user friendly at all and is very slow. I like how intuitive of a tool it is. Even new hires can pick it up and figure it out.

Negative: Altium is getting bigger and bigger in terms of program size and slower to work with. If they want to stay ahead, they need to take some time to slim down and improve the overall system performance.

Summary: I will not say that this software does the absolute best for all PCB designing projects. However, it has all of the features and feel of what a good, professional software package should have. While some competitors might have specific expert level features for certain applications, they lack in a lot of other places where Altium has improved and excelled at.

Altium should be considered the minimum standard for the industry in all of it's features and design, and it really shows when using anything else how they might focus on one aspect of their software rather than providing a whole integrated package. Unless you have some specific requirements that force you to use some other package, I would currently recommend Altium as the first choice.

Positive: Excellent UX design with modern look and feel.
Great customization options for workflow.
Uses the same tool for all PCB design tasks.
All of the basic features and most of the advanced ones.

Negative: Occasional crashing and stability issues when working with large projects.
Still behind on some of the expert level features.

Summary: I've been using Altium for over 5 years after using other CAD products and find it to be a very powerful and easy CAD software. It has advanced capabilities, is easy to customize and perform batch operations to ensure uniformity and consistency across a design.

Positive: First I will say Altium has great online resources. If there is anything you are trying to do or having trouble with, you can find help online. Customer support is responsive if needed. Next I will say Altium is a powerful tool and I have yet to find a limitation that keeps me from my intended design. Convenient and easy shortcuts make execution smooth and advanced capabilities that make all kinds of designs possible without being limited by CAD software. 3d circuit and variant managing is incredibly useful. Stackup design and impedance calculators, customizability for viewing, batch operations (such as teardrops and removing unused pads on inner layers) and design rules that can be detailed/very specific but are easy to create make it easy to execute the desired design with confidence.

Negative: Sometimes Altium becomes unresponsive or unable to perform certain tasks. Restarting the program usually helps, sometimes I need to restart my computer. This may be an issue with my computer, not Altium, but I'm not sure.
No real complaints, otherwise!

Summary: Throughout my career, this has been an excellent tool which has allowed me to achieve my goals with ease. It is the tool of choice in the area of the country I live in and considered the standard for PCB development.

Positive: I would use no other software for schematic capture/PCB development and maintenance. Altium offers powerful, intuitive PCB design tools with a unified design environment.

The expansive library of components, real-time collaboration, simulation and analysis tools make it easy to develop from concept, through production and well final product end of life.

Negative: There is a bit of a steep learning curve - which is lessened by the availability of in-person and online training courses.

In addition, it is a bit pricey, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Summary: I have built up such a knowledgebase in Altium that I shudder to think about ever needing to change to a different platform. There are small frustrations at times, but those are made up for when the product just generally works.

Positive: I have been using Altium daily since ~2007. The evolution of the main program, especially the web/365 integration, release process and parts control, searching and creation make 2007 look like the stone age. Highly recommended.

Negative: Support has been hit or miss lately. Getting through to a chat person who has the knowledge needed to answer questions is very difficult. Cases are routinely answered pretty quickly, though.

Summary: Very good job Altium. Best software I have ever used hands down!
Been doing Electrical Engineering for 30 Years now and have used them all.

Positive: Well thought out.
Constantly improved.
Very good support.
Saves so much time.
Visually stunning, logical interaction, Simulation, Draftsman, library from suppliers, SolidWorks integration, Active BOM, Cloud Based, Auto routing, etc.

Negative: Panel Snapping is awful, not intuitive.
Some refreshing errors.
No group project instant messaging while working together on project!
Some file types not supported.

Summary: A pretty good application, i am writing the rest of this part cause the writing requirements.

Positive: The designing and the features, hella a lot more but i am too lazy to write it i am writing this part to due to the writing requirements.

Negative: The pricing, and nothing else i am writing the rest of this part cause the writing requirements.